2167: It’s The Great Pumpkin, Mr Mario! – Oneshot

Title: It’s The Great Pumpkin, Mr Mario!
Author:  Galadriadhar
Media: Video Game / Television
Topic: Super Mario Brothers / Peanuts
Genre: Supernatural / Holiday
URL: It’s The Great Pumpkin, Mr Mario!
Critiqued by TacoMagic and Retired Darth Lord Crunchy

Heyo, patrons!  This week we have something very special: a fic based on the Peanuts’ holiday short It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! If you’ve never seen it (where the hell have you been!?) go ahead and click that link and be prepared for good ol’ wholesome 1960’s holiday values.  Or something.  I’m not sure the Great Pumpkin actually holds up, but it’s been a holiday tradition for me my whole life, so there’s a special place in my heart for it even if it’s not actually all that great.

Anyway, this week we see what happens when you mush that short together with Super Mario Brothers.

*Waits patiently for the screaming to die down*

“That sentence inspired more fear than the entire bulk of spooky noodles.”

Seriously, dude?  ‘Spooky noodles?’

“I stand by my version.”

Anyway, it’s actually not all that terrible by Library standards, given that it’s a holiday one-shot and as such is guaranteed to be fluffy as balls and empty of any sort of tension, interest, or plot.  Even so, there’s one thing that made this fic one of the cringiest I pulled out of the Great Pumpkin crosses.

“Hold for a moment; Great Pumpkin crossovers are a thing?”

Apparently, there are nearly two-hundred of them, most of which are crosses with Supernatural for some reason.

“How has your monkey race not managed to drive themselves to extinction yet?”

I wonder that myself at times.  Anyway, let’s check this fic out, which, amazingly, doesn’t start with either an author’s note or a disclaimer.  That alone is almost worth a redemption cookie.  Or it would be if I hadn’t already read the thing and know what we’re in for.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. The sound came from the front door of the Mario Brothers’ home.

“Typical.  You buy a nice door but then put ethanol fuel in it to save money.  For all of you out there who own a door or are considering door ownership, please make sure to use alcohol-free unleaded petroleum in your doors with an octane rating of at least ninety-two.”

Meh, I prefer to just put whatever fuel is cheapest in the door and buy a new one whenever it starts knocking.

“I loathe you.”

“There’s the door again,” Luigi said, looking up from his book.

“If you would stop putting E-fifteen in your door then it would stop doing that.”

*Taco opens the newspaper and looks through the advertisements*

Looks like Harbor Freight is selling off-brand doors at twelve for a dollar.

“I will Force-lightning you directly in the face.”

It was titled The Headless Toad, and Other Scary Tales. “Do you want to get it, bro?”

Eh, that’s not a particularly clever reference to the Maggie Pearson book of a similar name (which itself is just a collection of adapted public domain works headlining Washington Irving’s short story), but Super Mario Brothers is rife with those kinds of thematically-twisted references already, so I’ll let it be.

“By ‘let it be’ you of course mean only spending one sentence being pedantic about it instead of several paragraphs, yes?”

Uh, yeah.

Sure,” Mario said, putting down his book. His book was called The Missing Plate of Pasta, and Other Scary Tales.

“It must be a series.”

Personally I prefer to get my B-movie on for Halloween, then finish the marathon up with a healthy dose of Bette Middler.

“Are all of your Halloween traditions so lackluster.”

Hell yeah!  Halloween is the best day of the year for wallowing in your personal lameness!

“Let-a me grab the candy-a.”

“What in the name of the seven hells is that!?”

What? You mean the dialogue?  That would be the author trying to type out Mario’s accent.  It’s the cringy “one thing” I alluded to earlier.

“I feel nauseous just gazing upon it.”

Don’t worry, it gets worse.

He picked up a bowl of wrapped mushroom-shaped chocolates. Making his way across the cluttered floor, he finally made it to the door, which he promptly opened.

“‘Finally’ made it to the door?”

Mario likes to take his time answering the door on Halloween.  Toilet paper and eggs hold no fear for him.

Mario was met with a resounding chorus of “Trick or Treat!” There on the porch stood an assortment of Toad children holding plastic pumpkins, dressed up as Boos, Bandits, and other creatures.

Given his popularity in the Mushroom Kingdom, I’m surprised nobody is dressed up as him.

“I take it then that you are not going to address there being a Halloween in Mario’s universe?”

Eh, these days the Mario universe is just a mess of references and real world parallels.  Not to mention it’s so fractured and chaotic that at this point you might as well just recite the MST3K mantra whenever you pick up a Mario game.  There is no unifying Mario canon, and I don’t think that it really needs one.  Without a solid canon, the franchise can remain fluid enough to incorporate pretty much any one-off game or mini-series the creators decide on, for good or for ill.  And it helps that Mario has been extremely tongue-in-cheek ever since Super Mario RPG.

“You have made me regret asking.”

Then my job here is done.

There were also a few real Boos holding bags bulging with candy.

Wait, what’s a boo going to do with candy?

“More to the point, how is it holding the bag?”

Ah, right.

“Hello, Mr Mario!” the children chanted. “May we please have some candy?”

“They already uttered the standard Halloween refrain.  Is not asking for candy redund-”

*ALARM BLARES*

“Curses.”

*Crunchy gets out of his seat, grabs the candy bowl, and goes to the door to hand out candy to the DRD agents*

Mario chuckled, remembering the days when he was a young one and would walk the streets of Brooklyn, begging homeowners for a morsel of sweetness.

“He lived in Brooklyn?  Where is that in the Mushroom kingdom?”

This must be based on the Super Show canon.  Which, if you’re going to make a lame Halloween cross, you won’t find much material out there that’s lamer.  Though I have no idea how that works with toads being everywhere instead of people, since Super Show Mario still lives in New York in the Super Show.  Maybe we just need to accept that none of this is going to make any sense.

“Standard Library protocol, then.”

Yup.

“Sure thing-a, little ones!” Mario grabbed handfuls of chocolates and put them in each kid’s candy holder.

“He is still trying the accent.”

Forget that, I just noticed that this fic actually formats the dialogue correctly.  It’s hard to get used to not wondering who the hell is talking.

“And I’ve got-a special thing-a for each of-a you.”

Generally not something you want to hear while trick-or-treating.  But at least Mario isn’t in a van.

He reached into the house and grabbed a handful of papers, each with two signatures on it.  Separating the papers from each other, he placed one paper in each kid’s bag. One Toad child picked his out of his bag and looked at it.

“Ah yes, signed change orders.  Always appreciated when you submit funding approval requests.”

Remind me not to knock at your door while trick-or-treating.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“That is-a autograph, signed-a by me-a and-a Luigi!” Mario explained.

“Taco.”

Yes?

“I believe it is getting worse.”

I told you it would.  Just try not to look directly at the dialogue.

“Awesome!” the kids yelled. “Thanks, Mr Mario!”

“You’re-a welcome, kids-a.” Mario waved to the kids as they all left, except one.

Dude, you’re doing it wrong.  If you want to double-dip the house, you gotta leave and come back in like an hour.  That way even if the people think they recognize you, they won’t be sure enough to withhold the second serving.

“That sounds far more underhanded for you than usual.”

There is no morality when it comes to the old couple who’s handing out full-sized Milky Way.

The little Toad kid was looking in his pumpkin sadly. “What’s-a the matter, Charlus?” Mario questioned.

“Why is Palamède de Charlus on Mario’s doorstep?”

Maybe he had a thing for mustaches?

“I gots a rock again,” Charlus moaned

Kind of a dick move on Mario’s part to give the poor kid a rock, but at least Baron Charlus stuck around to call Mario on his bullshit.

“What is considered the worse item to receive, the rock or the toothbrush?”

That’s a hard one.  The rock is useless and insulting, but the toothbrush is the Halloween equivalent of a ‘Keep the Christ in Christmas’ sign on the lawn.  Still, probably the toothbrush because at least it’s worth like fifty cents.

Mario leaned over and looked in Charlus’s pumpkin.

Gods I hope that isn’t a euphemism, but knowing Baron Charlus, it probably is.

 Sure enough, there was no sign of a mushroom chocolate, only black rocks that looked a bit like coal.

“The Chocolate to Stone spell is not often used, but I suppose enchanting a child’s candy receptacle with it is as good an application as any.”

Don’t be ridiculous, there’s no such spell as Chocolate to St-

“That won’t-a do,” Mario said. “Here, take-a some more chocolate-a.” Mario dumped some more chocolate into Charlus’s pumpkin, and watched as it turned into rock halfway into the pumpkin.

“You were saying?”

Oh for fuck’s sake.

“Hmm.” Mario thought for a bit, then smiled. “Let-a me-a take your pumpkin and give-a you a new bag! Here,” Mario said, handing Charlus a bag from the sleeve hanging on the door. He then dumped the rocks into the bag, and was overjoyed to see them turn back into candy on the way into the bag. Charlus was ecstatic.

I suppose that’s supposed to be the old reliable of providing shallow conflict followed by immediate resolution.

“I think that is being quite generous with the definition of conflict, even by our standards.”

It’s Halloween, I’m in a giving mood.

“If I had been craftier, I would have enchanted Charlus with the spell so that all candy he came into contact with turned to stone.”

“Thanks, Mr Mario!” Charlus made to leave, then turned back around to face Mario. “Mr Mario, have yous heard of the Great Pumpkin?”

“I think Mario may be spreading around an accent plague.”

Yeah, the first time I thought it was just a typo, but now I think that toad is supposed to have a lower-East-side accent.

“What-a is-a the Great Pumpkin-a? And why-a do you-a ask?” Mario asked.

“Taco.”

I know, Crunchy, I know.

“The Great Pumpkin is the being of Halloween. He rises from the most sincere pumpkin patch every year. Then he gives candy to the good boys and girls. I’m just trying to find someone who believes in the Great Pumpkin.”

Wait, in the original it was Linus who was trying to convince everyone about the Great Pumpkin.   Why is the Charlie Brown analogue doing it here?

“Mahap Charlus is actually supposed to be a portmanteau of Charlie and Linus and this child is really an abominable melding of flesh and bone.”

How did you make a Halloween story less wholesome!?

“Why-a?”

“I want to have someone sit in the pumpkin patch with me tonight. I’m too scared to do it alone.”

Now, imagine a degenerate forty-year-old aristocrat saying the same thing.

“How did you make this Halloween story less wholesome?”

“I’ll-a sit with you-a, Charlus. Let me-a grab

No!  Absolutely not!  This fic is disgusting enough without you grabbin-

my jacket-a.”

Oh.  Well then.  False alarm.

Mario went back into the house and grabbed the red jacket hanging on the wall hooks. “Hey-a, Luigi. I’m-a going to-a be gone-a while. Keep an eye-a on the house-a.”

And this is the point where Luigi thanks the gods that his brother is taking his accent somewhere else for a while.

“Luigi must be hard of hearing.  It is the only possibility that explains why he has not had a need to hide his brother’s body at any point before now.”

“Sure,” Luigi said, waving in Mario’s direction. He continued reading his book.

Mario walked back to the door and shut it behind him.

“Ah.  This would be another holiday fic that features more than its equitable share of nothing, yes?”

Got it in one.

He put on the jacket and gestured to Charlus to lead the way. Charlus led Mario out of the yard and into Toad Town.

“Why the accent then?”

Is the local slang for Brooklyn.

“Peculiar.”

They passed many kids trick-or-treating, and quite a few waved to Mario. He waved back and kept following Charlus.

Can we speed up the nothing, please?  I have a monster movie marathon I need to get rolling.

“I must admit that, despite their primitive nature, the Universal monster movies are quite good.”

They are.  Too bad this is a marathon of the works of Bill Rebane, Arthur Crabtree, Nathan Juran, Vic Savage, and William Castle.

“Oh.  Oh dear.”

“Here we are,” Charlus proclaimed, entering the pumpkin patch south of Toad Town.

*Taco and Crunchy stare through the void at a different patch of void*

How very…

“Sincere?”

Yeah, let’s go with that.

“What-a do we-a do now?” Mario asked.

We prepare for war!

“Unfetter the gourds of battle, we strike deep into the Great Pumpkin’s ranks this very night!”

“We wait.” Charlus sat down and watched the patch intently. Mario sat beside him and watched as well.

Oh, I guess it’s more of an ambush.

“Fetter the gourds, we shall let the beast come to us.”

LINE BREAK!

Some time later, Mario was still watching, but Charlus had fallen asleep. Mario was about to pick him up to take him home when something rustled in the patch.

“Ready the gourds!”

What is it with you and gourds, today?

“Nothing, really.  I just find that their utility in battle is greatly underrepresented in entertainment media.”

It sounded too big to be any normal creature.

So, bigger than like a whale then?  How are we defining normal?

“One moment.”

*Crunchy pulls out the badfic dictionary and flips to “n”*

“Let me see here, ah!  ‘Normal: Adjnoerb. A meaningless flavor word useful for increasing word count and adding superficial depth to otherwise uninteresting scenes.'”

I hate that damn book.

Mario nudged Charlus and whispered, “There’s-a something in-a the patch.”

There goes your element of surprise.

“The ambush has failed, unfetter the gourds, they are our only hope!”

Charlus woke up with a start and looked wildly around.

Well, if the Great Pumpkin wasn’t startled off before, he is now.

When he saw Mario, he calmed down. “What?” he whispered. Mario put a finger to his lips and pointed to a rising shadow in the patch. Charlus silently gasped.

NOW THAT WE’VE MADE ALL THIS NOISE, YOU SHOULD BE QUIET OR WE’LL SCARE IT OFF!

“Scare off the Great Pumpkin?”

Well, he’s a bit skittish right after he wakes up.  He’s more stalwart after that first cup of coffee.

The shadow became solid, and took on a definite shape.

A shape that definitely sucks?

“Wrong Shadow.  Again.”

It looked like a pumpkin had sprouted thin arms and legs.

Huh, sounds kinda cute, maybe he isn’t so ba-

aaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Charlus began jumping up and down in excitement.

Yeah, move around even more, I’m sure that won’t scare it off or get you eaten or anything.

The shadow seemed to look around, then jumped into the air and began gliding off.

See?  Smooth move.  Didn’t even get your candy from him.

“You say he gives candy?  Is this not the all-consuming Great Pumpkin which they summoned to torment the village and sow its fields of torture with the souls of children?”

No, that’s this guy’s cousin.

“Curses!”

It went into a patch of moonlight and Mario could see it clearly.

This dude sneaks like my five year old: ‘Watch me sneak! Don’t look at me, you can’t see because I’m invisible!’

Like he had thought, it was a pumpkin with spindly arms and thin legs.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

“Such a ddrama llama.”

But seeing it in the light was so much different than seeing it as a shadow. The thing radiated a majesty one would associate with Santa Claus.

“Kringle must be a far more terrifying creature in the Mario universe.”

Santa as similar to a spindly round thing that terrifies children.  Hmmm.

Welp.

“This truly is the being of Halloween,” Mario whispered.

“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Mr Mario!” Charlus exclaimed.

And we scared the shit out of him!  Keep running, coward!

A/N: In my opinion, everyone who writes fanfiction needs a Christmas or other holiday fic, a Halloween fic, and a Thanksgiving fic.

“You are, of course, allowed to be wrong.”

Yes, let’s fill the world of fanfiction with empty, fluffy holiday fics that do little more than act as an exercise in padding.

“And that is somehow differentiable from most non-holiday fanfiction?”

You got me there.

This is my Halloween fic, as you can see.

No shit, really?  I thought it was an allegory for the rise and fall of VHS tapes.

It was quite fun to write, and I enjoyed writing Charlus.

“It was not particularly enjoyable to read and Charlus was an uninteresting non-event in your already aimless story.”

At least you had fun, author.  Shame you couldn’t keep that fun to yourself.

He was intended to be a mix between Charlie Brown and Linus, hence the name.

“We dared predict the fiction and it has punished us for our accuracy.”

It would have been a better melding if you’d taken more from Charlie Brown’s character than getting a rock in his trick-or-treat bag.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for providing us with a short little uneventful, harmless badfic to use during our Spooptacular!

Until next week, patrons!

“So, would-a you-a like-a to go-a carve-a pumpkins-a?”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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